CSOs seek increased funding for health

The Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health (PACFaH) has called on the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, to push for Nigeria to redeem its commitment to increase health spending.

The commitments range from the Abuja Declaration in 2001, when heads of governments committed their countries to allocate 15 percent of their budgets to health.

PACFaH, a coalition of civil society groups pushing for child and family health, wants full appropriation for the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund, financed by one per cent of consolidated revenue and backed by the National Health Act.

The coalition, led by the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, wants appropriation for Nigeria to procure life-saving commodities including amoxicillin tablets, for childhood pneumonia, and zinclow-osmolarity oral rehydration solution, for childhood diarrhoea.

Speaking during a visit to the minister, programme director of the PSN-led PACFaH, Remi Adeseun, called for adequate funds to fully implement a work plan to push the National Strategic Plan of Action for Nutrition (NSPAN).

NSPAN is supposed to expire in 2019, but implementation has stalled since the policy document was released.

The coalition makes the case for investing “in health not just as an expense or a social service but giving positive contribution to the nation’s economy,” said Adeseun.

PACFaH wants more inclusion of civil society groups in planning and discussions leading up to budget formulation, and has asked that CSOs working in health be invited to the medium term development planning meetings spanning 2016 to 2020.

Udoma said he could not comment on raising health allocation to 15 per cent of national budget immediately, but spoke of “very strong commitment by the administration to meet those objectives.”